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I purchased a 9900k a couple Novembers ago and that box is easily one of the dumbest pieces of packaging I've ever seen. It is big, bulky, awkward, and probably not very environmentally friendly. In the absence of a stock cooler it would be better to just sandwich one in a clear plastic clamshell like DRAM and put a fancy cardboard insert, takes up less space, uses less resources and has less shipping weight. Actually the CPU itself is always in one of those small plastic clamshells anyway even inside the old boxes with bundled coolers...
I absolutely agree. Let me describe my experience with this absurd packaging. When I bought my 9900KS from Newegg:
The processor was in a plastic clamshell The plastic clamshell was in a small paperboard box The paperboard box was inside the plastic dodecahedron The plastic dodecahedron was covered by a cardboard sleeve with the processor name and specifications The dodecahedron with cardboard sleeve was inside a velvet bag The velvet bagged dodecahedron was nestled inside form-fitting foam packaging and cardboard box from Intel. The Intel cardboard box was surrounded by plastic air bags inside a Newegg cardboard box
This was the worst excess of packaging I've ever seen. It was probably $10-$20 of the processor's cost. And now that I have the processor installed in my PC, I have to store this dodecahedron somewhere until I sell the processor at some point in the future. Do people display these boxs in their homes? If I'm buying online, I don't care about the packaging. I'm glad this monstrosity is gone and we're back to the smaller cardboard boxes. Good riddance.
Amazon has gone in the complete opposite direction. It'll just be a bare processor tossed into a box 1000 times the size of the processor, put in one slice of packing paper, and call it a day.
That's literally every single package I've gotten from Amazon US this past 2 years. I've given up on it and try to order everything off Amazon Japan. Sadly, computer part prices are crap in Japan, so I order Newegg. Prices are usually close to Amazon US, but no free shipping. I'll pay for shipping just to know my crap won't get damaged when it gets to me. Military APO/FPO mail is not nice to packages. Although, no idea if it's the USPS side or military side that likes to smash boxes.
That's properly silly. My instinct when I saw this launch was to recoil from the obviously OTT packaging, but know that it comes packaged in more packaging... FFS.
The odd shaped boxes are the emperor's new clothes. Costs more to package, wastes space and costs more to ship. Now it looks like AMD fans have a great ball to physically kick after the figurative kicking Intel has been taking.
The plastic insert and barcodes are kept. The box gets tossed. I can't even see what Intel was trying to do here. It seems like someone suggested a fancy box will look cool and sell more units. Rather than cool, it looks like they're trying to trick me, a potential customer, into thinking they include a cooler in their massive box with a massive number on the sticker. It's all hot air.
Well, if you're going to build a high-end pc and buy the top end overclockable processor only to use the stock cooler, then perhaps you might have your priorities misaligned
You’re not even presenting an argument here. The stock AMD coolers are sufficient to run AMD parts without thermal throttling and without overclocks. Overclocking headroom has never been lower. Gone are the days of 50% OC, or even 25% OC. If you want to spend $50 on a CPU cooler, you’re better off spending $50 on a better CPU. Is dropping the pomp for performance really a sign of misaligned priorities, or is it your priorities that are misaligned?
This talking about the coolers that needs to be bought every time one install a new CPU is quite stupid. It's like saying that you need a new Monitor, Keyboard and mouse if you upgrade your case. Or you want them bundled with it because that way they are cheaper to have.
Once you have bought one of those 3rd party cooler you do not need to buy a new one until the install points on MB will change. It is about 10 years that they have not changed BTW. And with a different adapter the cost of few dollars you could mount it on new motherboard as you do when using the same cooler on Intel or AMD motherboards.
So, if I spent $50 on a cooler it is not worse than buying a better CPU once. I buy the cooler once and then I can get better, faster, warmer CPU later. For many years in future. Without having to worry about it being bundled or not.
Upgrade/maintenance of a system is a much lower cost and value than making a new system. It isn't stupid. It's a real cost and it really is incurred on customers.
There's a big flaw in this line of thinking: AMD includes CPU coolers with their CPUs that have motherboards that have mobo platforms that support 4 years of CPUs. Intel doesn't include coolers and you need a new mobo with every new CPU.
So if you want to do upgrade/maintenance with Intel the incremental cost is larger than with AMD, yet Intel doesn't include the CPUs to make this option more economically sound? It doesn't add up. Intel just doesn't want to spend the money to bundle a cooler capable of cooling their 200W CPUs. The size of the cooler would also pretty embarrassing compared to their previously bundled coolers. Judging from these boxes they care a lot about their appearance.
Some Intel boxed CPUs include coolers and thermal compound of some sort is typically applied but protected by a bit of plastic packaging. In fact, I think they don't include one only in the unlocked/overclock K chips. Typically, the default Intel cooler sold with their non-K chips is perfectly adequate. Typically chips with a stock cooler run at about 75-80C under load and the fan noise is only audible from close to the case in a quiet room. There is space for improvement so aftermarket coolers, if someone wants to spend the money, will give lower temps and likely less noise, but they are not ever necessary to keep a non-overclocked Intel chip healthy.
With that said, AMD does do better with their boxed coolers. They are typically quieter and better able to keep temps under control in processors with the same rated TDP (though the difference in how Intel and AMD rate TDP is already well-known and should be considered).
lol I can say from experience the "65 watt" i7s of the last few years do not run 80 C under load with their dinky HSF. That's about half load. At full load, expect temperatures stuck at 100 C and clocks dropping to 3 GHz.
To make it all the more ridiculous, Intel also has the much more appropriate BXTS15A HSF...sold separately.
As far as I've seen the difference in boxed vs aftermarket coolers for non-overclocked processors is basically a placebo level of performance gain for an additional cost that can otherwise be diverted into personal savings or invested in a retirement.
Sorry PeachNCream, but none of your commentary on the boxed cooler rings true for me.
The boxed cooler with the non-K chips is extremely lightweight. It's just about sufficient for running at base clocks, but turbo speeds are in no way guaranteed. It may once have been able to keep a quad-core Haswell CPU at 80 degrees, but that's definitely not true for anything with 6 or more cores and/or a turbo above 4.5Ghz. In terms of noise, not only is it loud at full speed, it's also a very aggressive noise. It has a higher pitch than the average 120mm case fans and a tendency to buzz, which resonates through the cheap plastic frame into the lightweight aluminium fins.
It truly is the absolute bare minimum, and I have serious misgivings about anything in the 10 series above the i3 being able to perform properly underneath it.
That seems quite odd compared to my experiences with boxed coolers. In the last decade, I've generally used Intel's OEM coolers and have had no problems at all and have never seen temps much above 80C and fan noise is minimal at best. Your conditions will vary from one location to the next, so possibly your ambient temps are higher than around 72F, but I can't explain the negative experiences beyond giving the whole thing an apathetic shrug. I'll gladly run whatever cooler comes with the CPU and pocket the difference as another little bit of personal or retirement investing money.
It's definitely the coolest packaging in the CPU aisle at my local Micro Center. Does it matter? A little bit. If I were on the fence as to whether to buy a 9900K instead of a 9700K, to get those extra 8 threads, maybe it would be the factor that tips the scales.
It also depends on if you have a place to display the box. I remember seeing one of these boxes at the office in the winter of 2018-2019. In some hardware-friendly circles, that would be a good conversation starter. I still have my 2500K box on a bookcase, which has also been used for wrapping Christmas presents a couple times, and for awhile had an 800 MB hard drive on display (yes, megabytes). It all depends on the target audience.
I think the packaging was pretty cool. I've been buying CPUs since the mid 90s, and this was by far the most interesting. If AMD didn't have a better processor/ motherboard combination, I might have gotten one, but I ended up getting a 3900X instead. Still, I feel a little sad that I didn't get one of those boxes. It would have been pretty cool.
Luckily the 3900X box is nice too, but it isn't as unique.
While I feel the box looks nice, I have to agree that it is impractical and pointless. Getting rid of it will be good. Though I feel Intel is stopping it not because of these points, but rather to save cost. They seem to be scrimping wherever they can. If they are really about cutting cost, they could have just EOL the 9900K since its superseded by the 10xxx series. Its written here that they are removing the packing because the 9900K is no longer the flagship, but I don't see them using the same packaging on the new flagship.
This packaging would have been a collectors item if it were on a standout product. They probably could have used it on the 8086K or the G3258 and the packaging would have mattered. Or even the 2700K, the definitive chip of the new era. Collectors would have totally gone for one of those sealed in a unique box.
But slapping it on a chip that isn't unique doesn't really send the right message apart from, "Buy our stuff, new hat"
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Chaitanya - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
For the 1st time in long time Intel had put some thought into retail packaging.laurakmullinax - Tuesday, June 9, 2020 - link
Follow guide we have for you and you can make 90 dollars every hour… Our agents earn around $12k a month… Join them… and start working from comfort of your home! All you need is a computer and a internet connection and you are ready to start. Learn how to make a steady income for yourself on following web adress… WWW. iⅭash68.ⅭOⅯazfacea - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
what good is a package if there is nothing inside it, Mr AndersonGreenReaper - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
Something interesting to put on your shelf?azfacea - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
i was trying to create a joke out of matrix and intel sillicon shortage, but didnt get anywhere close. LULboozed - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
I enjoyed itSpunjji - Monday, June 1, 2020 - link
It's cool, you did goodIndianaKrom - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
I purchased a 9900k a couple Novembers ago and that box is easily one of the dumbest pieces of packaging I've ever seen. It is big, bulky, awkward, and probably not very environmentally friendly. In the absence of a stock cooler it would be better to just sandwich one in a clear plastic clamshell like DRAM and put a fancy cardboard insert, takes up less space, uses less resources and has less shipping weight. Actually the CPU itself is always in one of those small plastic clamshells anyway even inside the old boxes with bundled coolers...The Von Matrices - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
I absolutely agree. Let me describe my experience with this absurd packaging. When I bought my 9900KS from Newegg:The processor was in a plastic clamshell
The plastic clamshell was in a small paperboard box
The paperboard box was inside the plastic dodecahedron
The plastic dodecahedron was covered by a cardboard sleeve with the processor name and specifications
The dodecahedron with cardboard sleeve was inside a velvet bag
The velvet bagged dodecahedron was nestled inside form-fitting foam packaging and cardboard box from Intel.
The Intel cardboard box was surrounded by plastic air bags inside a Newegg cardboard box
This was the worst excess of packaging I've ever seen. It was probably $10-$20 of the processor's cost. And now that I have the processor installed in my PC, I have to store this dodecahedron somewhere until I sell the processor at some point in the future. Do people display these boxs in their homes? If I'm buying online, I don't care about the packaging. I'm glad this monstrosity is gone and we're back to the smaller cardboard boxes. Good riddance.
LiKenun - Sunday, May 31, 2020 - link
Having Amazon’s “frustration-free packaging” option would be nice for CPUs.YB1064 - Sunday, May 31, 2020 - link
What is so frustrating about packaging? Just rip it apart.khanikun - Monday, June 1, 2020 - link
Amazon has gone in the complete opposite direction. It'll just be a bare processor tossed into a box 1000 times the size of the processor, put in one slice of packing paper, and call it a day.That's literally every single package I've gotten from Amazon US this past 2 years. I've given up on it and try to order everything off Amazon Japan. Sadly, computer part prices are crap in Japan, so I order Newegg. Prices are usually close to Amazon US, but no free shipping. I'll pay for shipping just to know my crap won't get damaged when it gets to me. Military APO/FPO mail is not nice to packages. Although, no idea if it's the USPS side or military side that likes to smash boxes.
flyingpants265 - Sunday, June 7, 2020 - link
"Frustration-free packaging" is one of the stupidest phrases I have ever read.Slash3 - Sunday, May 31, 2020 - link
It's the top tier turducken of poor packaging.Spunjji - Monday, June 1, 2020 - link
That's properly silly. My instinct when I saw this launch was to recoil from the obviously OTT packaging, but know that it comes packaged in more packaging... FFS.tygrus - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
The odd shaped boxes are the emperor's new clothes. Costs more to package, wastes space and costs more to ship. Now it looks like AMD fans have a great ball to physically kick after the figurative kicking Intel has been taking.tygrus - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
Sorry, correction .. I should have been written that mostly in past tense. The packaging is gone..mrvco - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
Don't open your dodecahedron CPU box kids, it could be worth a fortune in a few decades :pFunBunny2 - Sunday, May 31, 2020 - link
unfortunately a cpu doesn't have that ageing patina of, say, a Patek Philipe. which your grandson will wear with distinction.mrvco - Sunday, May 31, 2020 - link
I was thinking more along the lines of 'collectibles' such as Star Wars figurines and Cabbage Patch dolls.willis936 - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
The plastic insert and barcodes are kept. The box gets tossed. I can't even see what Intel was trying to do here. It seems like someone suggested a fancy box will look cool and sell more units. Rather than cool, it looks like they're trying to trick me, a potential customer, into thinking they include a cooler in their massive box with a massive number on the sticker. It's all hot air.Retycint - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
Well, if you're going to build a high-end pc and buy the top end overclockable processor only to use the stock cooler, then perhaps you might have your priorities misalignedwillis936 - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
You’re not even presenting an argument here. The stock AMD coolers are sufficient to run AMD parts without thermal throttling and without overclocks. Overclocking headroom has never been lower. Gone are the days of 50% OC, or even 25% OC. If you want to spend $50 on a CPU cooler, you’re better off spending $50 on a better CPU. Is dropping the pomp for performance really a sign of misaligned priorities, or is it your priorities that are misaligned?CiccioB - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
This talking about the coolers that needs to be bought every time one install a new CPU is quite stupid.It's like saying that you need a new Monitor, Keyboard and mouse if you upgrade your case. Or you want them bundled with it because that way they are cheaper to have.
Once you have bought one of those 3rd party cooler you do not need to buy a new one until the install points on MB will change. It is about 10 years that they have not changed BTW. And with a different adapter the cost of few dollars you could mount it on new motherboard as you do when using the same cooler on Intel or AMD motherboards.
So, if I spent $50 on a cooler it is not worse than buying a better CPU once.
I buy the cooler once and then I can get better, faster, warmer CPU later. For many years in future. Without having to worry about it being bundled or not.
willis936 - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
Upgrade/maintenance of a system is a much lower cost and value than making a new system. It isn't stupid. It's a real cost and it really is incurred on customers.willis936 - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
There's a big flaw in this line of thinking:AMD includes CPU coolers with their CPUs that have motherboards that have mobo platforms that support 4 years of CPUs.
Intel doesn't include coolers and you need a new mobo with every new CPU.
So if you want to do upgrade/maintenance with Intel the incremental cost is larger than with AMD, yet Intel doesn't include the CPUs to make this option more economically sound? It doesn't add up. Intel just doesn't want to spend the money to bundle a cooler capable of cooling their 200W CPUs. The size of the cooler would also pretty embarrassing compared to their previously bundled coolers. Judging from these boxes they care a lot about their appearance.
PeachNCream - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
Some Intel boxed CPUs include coolers and thermal compound of some sort is typically applied but protected by a bit of plastic packaging. In fact, I think they don't include one only in the unlocked/overclock K chips. Typically, the default Intel cooler sold with their non-K chips is perfectly adequate. Typically chips with a stock cooler run at about 75-80C under load and the fan noise is only audible from close to the case in a quiet room. There is space for improvement so aftermarket coolers, if someone wants to spend the money, will give lower temps and likely less noise, but they are not ever necessary to keep a non-overclocked Intel chip healthy.With that said, AMD does do better with their boxed coolers. They are typically quieter and better able to keep temps under control in processors with the same rated TDP (though the difference in how Intel and AMD rate TDP is already well-known and should be considered).
brantron - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
lol I can say from experience the "65 watt" i7s of the last few years do not run 80 C under load with their dinky HSF. That's about half load. At full load, expect temperatures stuck at 100 C and clocks dropping to 3 GHz.To make it all the more ridiculous, Intel also has the much more appropriate BXTS15A HSF...sold separately.
PeachNCream - Tuesday, June 2, 2020 - link
As far as I've seen the difference in boxed vs aftermarket coolers for non-overclocked processors is basically a placebo level of performance gain for an additional cost that can otherwise be diverted into personal savings or invested in a retirement.Spunjji - Monday, June 1, 2020 - link
Sorry PeachNCream, but none of your commentary on the boxed cooler rings true for me.The boxed cooler with the non-K chips is extremely lightweight. It's just about sufficient for running at base clocks, but turbo speeds are in no way guaranteed. It may once have been able to keep a quad-core Haswell CPU at 80 degrees, but that's definitely not true for anything with 6 or more cores and/or a turbo above 4.5Ghz. In terms of noise, not only is it loud at full speed, it's also a very aggressive noise. It has a higher pitch than the average 120mm case fans and a tendency to buzz, which resonates through the cheap plastic frame into the lightweight aluminium fins.
It truly is the absolute bare minimum, and I have serious misgivings about anything in the 10 series above the i3 being able to perform properly underneath it.
PeachNCream - Tuesday, June 2, 2020 - link
That seems quite odd compared to my experiences with boxed coolers. In the last decade, I've generally used Intel's OEM coolers and have had no problems at all and have never seen temps much above 80C and fan noise is minimal at best. Your conditions will vary from one location to the next, so possibly your ambient temps are higher than around 72F, but I can't explain the negative experiences beyond giving the whole thing an apathetic shrug. I'll gladly run whatever cooler comes with the CPU and pocket the difference as another little bit of personal or retirement investing money.mrvco - Sunday, May 31, 2020 - link
The character of your build is reflected in not just your choice of interior RGB lighting and artisan keycaps, but also in your choice of CPU cooler.IBM760XL - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
It's definitely the coolest packaging in the CPU aisle at my local Micro Center. Does it matter? A little bit. If I were on the fence as to whether to buy a 9900K instead of a 9700K, to get those extra 8 threads, maybe it would be the factor that tips the scales.It also depends on if you have a place to display the box. I remember seeing one of these boxes at the office in the winter of 2018-2019. In some hardware-friendly circles, that would be a good conversation starter. I still have my 2500K box on a bookcase, which has also been used for wrapping Christmas presents a couple times, and for awhile had an 800 MB hard drive on display (yes, megabytes). It all depends on the target audience.
Martimus - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
I think the packaging was pretty cool. I've been buying CPUs since the mid 90s, and this was by far the most interesting. If AMD didn't have a better processor/ motherboard combination, I might have gotten one, but I ended up getting a 3900X instead. Still, I feel a little sad that I didn't get one of those boxes. It would have been pretty cool.Luckily the 3900X box is nice too, but it isn't as unique.
rdgoodri - Saturday, May 30, 2020 - link
Darn that was the best thing about the CPU.watzupken - Sunday, May 31, 2020 - link
While I feel the box looks nice, I have to agree that it is impractical and pointless. Getting rid of it will be good. Though I feel Intel is stopping it not because of these points, but rather to save cost. They seem to be scrimping wherever they can. If they are really about cutting cost, they could have just EOL the 9900K since its superseded by the 10xxx series. Its written here that they are removing the packing because the 9900K is no longer the flagship, but I don't see them using the same packaging on the new flagship.Klimax - Sunday, May 31, 2020 - link
Bit off-topic, but is that old RJ45 and BNC NIC? Looks familiar, maybe one of the RTL8029-based?extide - Sunday, May 31, 2020 - link
Looks like a version of the 3c509-comboMDD1963 - Sunday, May 31, 2020 - link
I mean, who would want such performance without the weird box to be discarded after a few moments anyway....Danvelopment - Tuesday, June 2, 2020 - link
This packaging would have been a collectors item if it were on a standout product. They probably could have used it on the 8086K or the G3258 and the packaging would have mattered. Or even the 2700K, the definitive chip of the new era. Collectors would have totally gone for one of those sealed in a unique box.But slapping it on a chip that isn't unique doesn't really send the right message apart from, "Buy our stuff, new hat"
mikato - Sunday, June 14, 2020 - link
What a terrible gimmick